If they're not encrypted, how come they are not received on the BEV receiver without a subscription or are you saying that they are FTA directly from the source?

They can't be received on a BEV receiver due to the proprietary software in the receiver/card. They just can't be viewed or heard without subscription, because that's what how the receiver is programmed.
If you use a standard FTA DVB receiver (not very popular in North America), you will be able to get those audio channels without problems.

I've inherited a Bell dish and 3100 receiver with a new condo purchase. Although I'm going to transfer the dish account over and do a basic $25 activation initially, over the long term, I've pretty much decided to go with digital cable.

So, I have a couple of questions. I apologize in advance if these repeat parts of other posts on the forum.

With no mods at all, what can I get with this system once I tell Bell to close my account?

Will any FTA broadcasts come in or will the receiver be completely de-activated?

If I buy an FTA receiver of some kind, can I just hook it up to the dish wire and pick up anything?

If I buy an FTA receiver and reposition the BEV dish, will I be able to pick up anything using this dish (it's an 18" or 24"—I won't have the new condo for another few weeks)? If so, what would be the best choice?

Ok, just thought I would check. I have fond memories of visiting a cousin in Nova Scotia with a satellite dish back in the early 80s and staying up all night a couple of times just channel surfing. It was so fascinating. Since the current condo owner is offering to leave his fully configured BEV system for no extra charge, I thought I might as well keep it. Although logically I'll probably never use it much, having the extra time-shifting channels, etc., when compared to Videotron's digital cable, etc., will be cool. Once I get over that novelty, I'll probably deactivate it and sell the system or give it to a family member who might want it. I was just trying to find some use for it.

lsiten to this. I have a dish pointed at IA5 @ 97W for Croatian Programming. I like trying things out so I went and hooked up Bell receiver to it. Guess what I got some channels. Some arabic ones
I did some research and I've found out that there used to be service on that satelite by Echostar. It was called SkyVista. It doesn't exist anymore but there are still few channels left which use the same symbol rate from back then. Since symbol rate was set by Echostar and Bell's receivers are made by Echostar, this makes sense. Give it a try
You can actually use any Bell or Dish receiver set to TP 13 to find signal on IA5@97. Just make sure you have true linear LNB (10750 settings) as universal ku band lnb will not work for finding signal but it will work if you already have the dish pointed to IA5.

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